


No Hetero

by ShitpostingfromtheBarricade



Series: Would a date by any other name be as infuriating? [3]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: 2 gay 2 function, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, But Also Pining, Enjolras - Freeform, Enjolras POV, Granjolras, Grantaire - Freeform, Grantaire pov, M/M, Marie had good reason to be fed up with these two, alternating pov, because they're STUPID, enjoltaire - Freeform, i'll update the character tags as chapters are uploaded, pure fluff, y'all asked and I delivered
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-01 19:58:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16290800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShitpostingfromtheBarricade/pseuds/ShitpostingfromtheBarricade
Summary: The series of dates fromDefine "Dating"andNot-Dates.Can be read alone, but much better with context.  Each chapter is its own date, no cliff-hangers in this house.  Dates are presented in chronological order.Warnings: language





	No Hetero

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to my brand new beta reader [PieceOfCait](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PieceOfCait/pseuds/PieceOfCait) for reading this when it was still 70% trash. <3

“There’s a new exhibit opening.”

Grantaire looks up from his phone. It was a quiet meeting tonight, one where Grantaire merely didn’t pay attention rather than actively arguing every single one of Enjolras’s points, and Enjolras thinks he feels disappointed for it. “What?”

“At the art museum. There’s a new exhibit.” Enjolras knows the name of the artist, but he doesn’t know how to say it.

“Yeah? I’ll have to go check it out.”

Enjolras tries not to make the gathering of his courage too obvious—he does public speaking as a hobby, for God’s sake, this shouldn’t be so difficult. “I was planning on going myself, actually, but I don’t know much about—about Twombly.” There, he’s said the name; it seems better than admitting his ignorance about all art. Judging by Grantaire’s expression, he has either said it correctly or Grantaire doesn’t know any better than he. “I was hoping that you might be able to act as my guide?”

Grantaire’s eyebrows shoot up, hidden behind his curls in surprise. “I’ll, uh. Let me check my schedule and get back to you? When were you thinking?”

Anytime. All the time. Right now. “My last class tomorrow ends at 11:15. Maybe we could grab lunch and make an afternoon of it?” He hopes he doesn’t sound overeager, but well, he is.

“Yeah. Let me check my schedule and get back to you,” the dark-haired man repeats.

Enjolras knows Grantaire never schedules classes on Fridays and doesn’t start his shift at the bar until the late evening, but maybe he has a meeting with a teacher. Or a friend. Or a date.

“Great!” Enjolras responds, trying to put the thought out of his head. “I look forward to it!”

Grantaire nods before turning back to his phone. Combeferre gives him an odd look, but Enjolras ignores it in favor of packing up his things. 

 

\---

 

“I know why I know about the exhibit, but why does he know about it?”

Grantaire finds himself in Jehan’s apartment where Jehan is humming, starting up some water for tea in their electric kettle.

“Maybe he feels he needs more culture in his life?”

“Jehan, it’s Cy Twombly. You and I both know he’s going to hate Cy Twombly. He barely appreciated E.E. Cummings.”

Jehan’s expression falters at that: it’s still a sore subject, and they generally try not to mention it.

“Well perhaps he has a friend who does appreciate Cy Twombly and wants to try to share that with them.”

Grantaire makes a face. “How many people does Enjolras know who would be impressed by him being familiar with neo-dadaism and abstract expressionism?”

The humming has stopped, and Grantaire looks up to see Jehan staring at him, unimpressed. “You, R. I was talking about you.” They hook a sloth tea infuser on the edge of one cup and plop a loch ness monster down in the center of the other. “So what did you tell him?”

“I told him I’d check my schedule.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Are you free?”

“Of course I’m free. I’d cut a shift if it meant going to the museum with Enjolras, if only to torment him with such classics as Princess X and _Ceci n’est pas une pipe_.” He pauses for a moment. “On second thought, with the proper background he would love Princess X.”

“Then why are you asking me for advice?” Jehan is now nestled in an armchair, curled up in a ball and looking cozy with their teacup. A delicate eyebrow is raised as they take a sip, Nessie bobbing to the side of their nose.

Grantaire shrugs helplessly, sliding over the back of the couch the way that Éponine always yells at him for. “Self-preservation?”

Jehan snorts as they go in for another sip. “R-ling, I love you, but I think it’s safe to say that we’re well-past that.”

Grantaire sighs, sitting himself up before reaching for his tea. He shakes the sloth several times, watching with satisfaction as billows of green steep out from it. He takes a sip before pulling out his phone.

 

_Tomorrow works. Where and when?_

 

\---

 

Enjolras has no idea if he’s doing anything right. He doesn’t know why, but somehow getting dressed for a museum date is much harder than getting dressed for a theme park or picking apples. 

(Or every other time he has seen Grantaire ever.)

He’s gone with a white button-down, jeans, and some loafers that he’s absolutely certain Grantaire will tease him for. Is it too much? Too little? He checks his watch again to verify that he still has five minutes to worry over his reflection in the glass of the bistro.

When he looks up again, he sees the man already approaching. In contrast to Enjolras, he wears a chunky burnt orange cardigan open over a light blue tee with skinny jeans. It should look terrible, but Grantaire pulls it off with an odd grace and a dash of irony. He recognizes it as Grantaire’s take on dressing up, and Enjolras’s earlier unease is relieved.

“What are you doing waiting out here? Get the hell out of the wind,” Grantaire chastises as soon as he’s close enough, pushing square sunglasses back into his curls.

They quickly scurry into the shop, finding a table with ease and picking up their menus. Grantaire immediately falls into complaining about the food selection.

“It’s all just soups, salads, and sandwiches.”

“It’s a soup, salad, and sandwich shop.”

“I had hoped that that was a suggestion, not a requisite.”

Enjolras rolls his eyes, returning his attention to the choices before him.

“Hey Enjolras. Enjolras. Enjolras.” He lowers the menu to glower at the dark-haired man before him. “Whatcha gon’ get?”

He takes a breath before answering. “Probably one of the soup-salad combos. I know I want pumpkin soup, but I haven’t decided on the salad yet.”

“Huh, okay.” There’s silence again, and Enjolras returns his attentions to the menu. “What kind of place doesn’t serve mac and cheese? Not even a pasta salad?”

Enjolras looks up again. Grantaire is flipping through the menu, barely taking time to skim each page. “Would you like to eat elsewhere?”

“Nah, nah, this’ll be fine. I’m sure I’ll find something.”

A minute later, Enjolras has his mind made up just as the waitress stops by. She introduces herself as Toussaint, but before Enjolras can so much as send Grantaire a warning glance Toussaint is squealing, and Grantaire is standing to hug her with a comfortable familiarity.

When they pull away and Grantaire is seated once more, Toussaint sets her hips, positioning her hands on them. “How’s the internship you abandoned us for?” The sharp words are incongruent with her teasing smirk.

“Pay and hours are still better, but the company they keep could never match this place,” he responds with easy confidence.

“Of course not.” Her face blossoms into a full-on smile. “We’ve missed you.”

“How is everyone?” 

“You might know if you hadn’t stopped answering all of our calls and texts.” She aims a pointed look at Grantaire, still smiling but clearly hurt. 

Grantaire's expression morphs into the picture of bashful guilt. “My last phone met an untimely yet unavoidable end.” If one could call Bossuet’s coordination and a misplaced tray of jell-o shots “unavoidable.” “I haven’t had an excuse to be on this side of town since. Sorry if I made you guys worry.”

The traces of hurt are gone as quickly as they appeared. “I might be persuaded to forgive you if you can have your new number ready by the time your food’s up.”

“Deal.” There’s a twinkle in Grantaire’s eye now that Enjolras can’t bring himself to look away from.

Toussaint finally removes her hands from her hips, returning to her notepad. “So that’ll be your regular for you?”

“Yeah, and a soup/salad combo for my friend here. Pumpkin soup and…?”

They both look expectantly at Enjolras, caught. “Ah. The chef’s salad, please.”

“Right.” She writes something down on her pad, tongue sticking out slightly from her mouth. “I’ll have those out to you just as soon as they’re done!” she assures, smiling brightly before spinning back toward the kitchen with a flourish.

Enjolras turns his attention to Grantaire, glaring. “I take it you have been here before, then.”

“Distinct possibility,” he says, grinning wolfishly. “If it helps, I was just as disappointed in their lack of pasta selections then as I am now.”

“Do you have designs to be this intentionally difficult the entire afternoon?”

“Only if I’m really, really lucky.” 

 

The lunch turns to light banter that could nearly be classified as pleasant. Several more of Grantaire’s former coworkers come out to greet him, most of them ribbing him in much the same way that Toussaint had. Several of them demand his phone to enter their numbers into his contacts right then and there, and Enjolras tries to ignore the jealous roiling of is stomach when the return of his phone is accompanied by a wink from one such coworker.

Once they’ve paid and tipped, they rise from the table. Grantaire goes ahead of him, holding open the door for him against the whistling wind in what he assumes is a gesture of peace.

Enjolras pulls on his pea coat and Grantaire gathers up his cardigan close to him, both watching the lanes in front of them for an opening to cross.

“Now!” shouts Grantaire, grabbing Enjolras’s bare hand in his woolen fingerless gloved one and yanking him across the street at a run.

Once they are safely out of the way of moving vehicles and standing in front of the pillars of the museum they both stop, heaving with laughter and exhilaration. They catch their breath before heading down the pathway to the doors.

“Hey Enjolras.” The man’s voice is oozing smugness, and Enjolras already knows what’s coming. “Nice shoes.”

“Don’t say it, Grantaire. Don’t say it.”

For a full four seconds Grantaire shows a remarkable amount of self-control.

“So what time does the yacht party sta—”

Enjolras throws his whole body into shouldering Grantaire, both of them nearly falling over with residual laughter.

 

\---

 

_Did he actually research Cy Twombly before coming here?_

The exhibit is the first place they headed after getting their shoes from the metal detectors and purchasing their tickets. Enjolras has been running a constant narration since entering the room, breaking down the symbolism and meaning in each piece and talking about how it relates back to the artist’s life.

“Hey, Enj?” he interrupts.

Enjolras stops, looking at him expectantly.

“Sometimes art can just be art. It’s cool to know the background and influences and symbolism and all, but art is also intended to be able to be appreciated without all of that. Just…just take a second to enjoy it for what it is for a bit.”

Silence, at last. He sneaks a peek over at Enjolras: his cheeks are pink, but he seems much more relaxed and interested in what’s in the room, which is all Grantaire can really ask for.

When they exit the room twenty minutes later, Grantaire finally breaks the silence: “So, what did you think? And I’m asking about Jean Enjolras’s opinion, not the editors of Cy Twombly’s Wikipedia page.”

Enjolras’s cheeks pinken again; Grantaire decides that it’s a good look on him. “It was just…childish scribbles. With mythology thrown in to add an element of pretentiousness.” He looks suddenly at Grantaire as if he’s said something wrong, but Grantaire just smiles at him.

“Yeah. I like the concept of a lot of Twombly’s work, but aesthetically it’s not something I’d bother purchasing for my own home. It’s nice to see in a museum every once in a while, just to be reminded that it exists and the way one man explored the ideas.”

Enjolras seems to think about that—and isn’t that something, Enjolras thinking seriously about something that Grantaire has to say without even being angry first?

“So,” Grantaire continues. “I still have a couple of hours until my shift, and this museum’s got some pretty cool stuff in it.” He pauses, trying to gauge Enjolras’s reaction before continuing. “If you want, I can act as your guide through some sections that you might actually appreciate?”

Enjolras, whose face had been frozen, turns to look at Grantaire before his expression melts into a smile. “I would really like that.” Grantaire pretends that his stomach hasn’t liquefied as he nods his head toward a different exhibit, catching Enjolras following just in his periphery.

 

“So this might be really naïve of me,” starts Enjolras, “but are all of these statues the same person?”

It does seem like a naïve question, Grantaire agrees, but on closer inspection Enjolras is absolutely correct. “Yep. This might just be the gayest room in this museum—and I know we passed through that exhibit on the Stonewall Riots and the Warhol feature, but this is gayer.” Enjolras closes his mouth, seeming to resign himself to hearing what Grantaire has to say. “This guy is Antinous, the person whose appearance we probably know the most about in all of the ancient world. Why? Because his lover was very wealthy and powerful and apparently dedicated obscene amounts of money to having his appearance immortalized for all of eternity.” He watches Enjolras turn this over in his head.

“What happened to them?”

Grantaire raises his eyebrows in surprise. Of all of the things he’d expected Enjolras to respond with, this was not one of them. “Antinous died young. There’s a lot of speculation around the details but it doesn’t really matter, because he died long before his time, and that’s tragic. Hadrian had him deified, though, and put him in the stars. Lived a couple more years before succumbing to some mystery illness.”

Enjolras makes an affirming sound. “I know that constellation. I’d had no idea that they were related.”

“Yeah, well, I guess that was how Hadrian showed his love: making sure that Antinous lived forever. I mean,” he gestures to the room. “We certainly haven’t forgotten him.”

Enjolras looks around the room thoughtfully, looking the statues up and down with careful inspection. “I don’t think I’d like that,” he decides abruptly. 

“No? Having your face plastered in museums for centuries to come isn’t really your thing?” he jokes. “Forget allusions to Apollo, you wouldn’t rather be your own God?” Grantaire tries to ignore the part of him that reminds him that Enjolras is already his own personal deity.

Enjolras grimaces. “My ideas and work, that’s what I’d want to live on after my death—untimely or no.” He glances around the room again. “I wouldn’t want anything showy and boisterous like this. I think I’d want someone who I feel at home with. Nothing that needs shouted to the world, just something private that we’d carry inside of ourselves.”

“ _Between the shadow and the soul_ ,” Grantaire quotes.

“Hmm?”

Grantaire shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it.” He checks his phone. “I think we have just enough time to check out French Romantics before we have to be going. You ready?” 

Enjolras smiles up at him, nodding before falling in beside him as Grantaire starts on his latest tirade in preparation for their final room.

**Author's Note:**

> But really, [Enj](https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/vulture/2018/04/03/cy/03-cy-twombly-01.nocrop.w710.h2147483647.jpg) [would](https://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/T/T07/T07889_10.jpg) [hate](https://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/T/T14/T14079_10.jpg) [Cy](http://images.cytwombly.org/www_cytwombly_org/CTDR_I_060_1954_Untitled_07_541.jpg) [Twombly](https://mosaiko.gr/media/k2/items/cache/7db105d1665f3ec4571b586cee2f157f_XL.jpg). But he'd adore [Princess X's backstory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_X) (spoilers: the piece itself seems crass, but it was done to insult to Napolean's great-grand niece, a French princess). 
> 
> The poem R quotes is [Sonnet XVII](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49236/one-hundred-love-sonnets-xvii) because he's a giant sap.
> 
> The museum is loosely based off of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (which is where I was first exposed to Cy Twombly).
> 
> [PieceOfCait](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PieceOfCait/pseuds/PieceOfCait) (my incredible beta) also did [fanart](https://thepiecesofcait.tumblr.com/post/179044258046/so-i-had-the-imponderable-pleasure-of-beta-reading) of our boys, check it out!!
> 
> COMMENTS. I LOVE THEM AND NEED VALIDATED, PLEASE. I plan on going through most of the dates mentioned in Define "Dating" and Not-Dates, but there will come a time where I put this series down. 
> 
> If ao3 makes you shy, you can also reach out to me at [my tumblr](http://shitpostingfromthebarricade.tumblr.com)!


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